Conscious Choice Seattle: News

February 2004 | Evergreen News

News

What’s For Dinner, Part One

By all accounts, Puget Sound residents and Americans alike aren’t buying any less beef this month than before a diseased cow was found in the central region of our state.

But that doesn’t mean organic beef revenues aren’t up. Every organic livestock farmer with a phone or Internet site or both reports more orders since late December. One local grocery chain, PCC markets, has tracked more demand for Oregon Country Beef products, which provide an animal’s history 10 generations back.

The organic farmers will tell you something to the effect that “the other hoof has yet to drop” on discovering more mad cow disease. Recent actions by the federal government—which insists the country’s meat supply is safe and most consumers appear to believe it—indicate there is some underlying concern that the sickly cow in Mabton may only be a starting shot.

Less than three weeks after the initial discovery of the first diseased cow on American soil, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has rushed to implement some long-needed regulatory changes..

It’s about time. The particulars on what cows eat goes a long way toward preventing any larger outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE.

“We can not only tell you what vegetarian feed our animals eat, we have the information on who provided the seeds for the plants,” said one farmer, who would rather not be identified because his operation can’t fill any more orders in 2004. “Factory-farm beef producers have the same details. They would just rather not ‘complicate’ matters for consumers.”

The fact is, we simply must embrace such “complications” when buying our food. If it makes shoppers squeamish about knowing too much about the slaughter of a cow or chicken, that’s not necessarily a negative. We owe to ourselves and any loved ones to seek full knowledge about what’s on our meal tables.

That’s just what Veneman heard during a recent meeting with consumer advocacy and food safety groups (check out www. consumersunion. org for more details). The coalition called for “immediate steps” such as more extensive testing, mandatory cattle identification practices (tagging calves at birth), a ban on high-risk tissue (intestines, brains and other internal parts) and a public reporting system on the locations of dangerous meat in the food chain.

One telling note on the demand for testing: The U.S. tested 20,000 out of a possible 35 million slaughtered cows in 2003. Japan tests every cow that goes to market for human consumption and even Belgium examined 400,000 cows. – Bob Condor

What’s For Dinner, Part Two

OK, so you decided to simply pass on the beef altogether until the government gets all of its new regulations in place. Or maybe you side with some scientists who say organic beef isn’t completely free from all possible infection (though the case is very strong that organic herds are not prey to mad cow disease).

Either way, you get in the car and head to the fish counter for a salmon filet. You might know that a new 2004 research study showed farm-raised salmon have high levels of PCBs or polychlorinated biphenyls. Consequently, you will be shopping for wild salmon to avoid the industrial toxins.

Then you turn on the car radio.

Uh-oh.

The latest news reports that wild chinook salmon pulled from the Sound carry the long-life PCBs in amounts comparable to the farm-raised salmon. You are not sure what to buy—or eat.

Evergreen Monthly feels your frustration and sees your empty shopping cart. Here are some ideas: If you choose salmon anyway (it loaded with “good” fats for the heart), look for fish from more northern parts of the Sound where PCBs readings were lower. In any case, let extra fat drip off the fish and don’t eat the skin. Toxins settle most in the skin and fat. Keep informed on where your dinner fish are being caught.

Let’s say your fishmonger doesn’t know or even show interest. Consider looking elsewhere for fish counter.

Other options include more vegetarian meals, such as rice and beans or lentil soup as your main dish some nights. No one is recommending against consuming local fish, but there is common sense in varying your diet.

It’s important to put PCB content in perspective. The reports on chinook and coho salmon from the Sound pegged PCB counts at 49 and 32 parts per billion (ppb), respectively. It is recommended that fish in the 23 to 47 ppb range be served no more than four times per month, assuming eight-ounce portions. Fish in the 47 to 63 ppb range are classified at three dinners per month.

Although PCBs were banned in the late 1970s, the compounds have stayed in the food chain cycle because fish and mammals can pass on PCBs (consumed by eating other fish and mammals) to their offspring. There is also suspicion that PCBs can travel by air from other countries where the chemicals are not prohibited.

Consequently, fish aren’t the only food with discernible PCB counts. Here are other readings from the federal Food and Drug Administration: Salted butter (70 ppb), canned tuna in oil (45), roasted chicken breast (32), pancake mix (24), steak (22), fried egg (19), popcorn popped in oil (17), biscuits baked from refrigerated dough (16), cornbread (11), raisins (10), fried chicken (9) and, in the cruelest blow, caramel candy (6).

—Andrew Mulholland

Believing in ReinCARnation

Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill., has struck up a partnership with the American Plastics Council and the Vehicle Recycling Partnership of USCAR (aka The Big Three: Chrysler, Ford and GM). The goal: to pilot a cost-effective process for recycling automobile plastic, currently left to choke the nation’s landfills when beaters kick the bucket.

The key word in that sentence is “cost-effective.” It isn’t that car plastic is unrecyclable, of course. It’s that, after junkyards remove metal parts from crushed cars, a pile of what is known as “shredder residue,” a mix of oxides, glass, dirt and plastics, must be separated and sorted before it can be reused. Rather than take time and money to do that, though, most U.S. auto recyclers toss the whole heap into the nearest dump. With
manufacturers turning increasingly to plastic to increase fuel efficiency, the problem is only getting worse.

However, European automakers have started to recycle car plastic, in no small part due to laws that make the process part of their bottom line. For instance, Germany’s Green Dot law has made manufacturers, not recycling companies, responsible for recycling their packaging. Consumers return bags and boxes to the manufacturer who must find a way to reuse or recycle it. The law has had several positive effects, including that many manufacturers have reduced their packaging. Anticipating legislation that would apply this rule to vehicles, some European car manufacturers have taken steps to make them more recyclable including designing for disassembly, reducing the number of plastic resins used and coding plastics for rapid identification.

Not surprisingly, automakers overseas, such as Volvo, have also started to find a use for recycled car plastics in the production of new automobiles. Jim Motavalli, editor of E/The Environmental Magazine and author of “Forward Drive: The Race to Build ‘Clean’ Cars for the Future,” says U.S. legislation similar to Germany’s Green Dot law would accomplish the ultimate goal for car recycling in America: Actually using the plastic after it is recycled. “By mandating that that this material be recycled, then the market would spring up for it,” says Motavalli.

In other words, Argonne’s work won’t be worth a mound of crushed beaters unless its partners, USCAR and the American Plastics Council, actually put recycled plastic to use.—Mandy Burrell

This Coffee Is for the Birds

Hoping to protect birds’ natural habitats, the National Audobon Society has launched a line of socially and environmentally friendly premium coffee certified by the Rainforest Alliance. Audobon Coffee is a response to a rise in destructive coffee growing techniques worldwide. Many farmers in Latin America and Africa have switched to full sun farming to boost production, forsaking ages-old methods of growing coffee beans nature’s way: under a canopy of tropical trees. With the destruction of these native shade trees, hundreds of bird species such as toucans and migratory warblers and wildlife such as jaguars and tree frogs are fo rced to go in search of suitable habitats.

Audobon’s line of coffees is produced and distributed by the Rogers Family Coffee Company of San Leandro, CA, a family-owned, environmentally and socially responsible coffee roaster since 1979. Audobon Coffee is available at www. audoboncoffee .com or/and at select retail outlets, supermarkets and gourmet stores.

—M.B.

Iowa Schools Spurn Irradiated Meat

The first non-California school district has passed a formal ban on irradiated meat. Parents in the school district of Iowa City, Iowa, worked with the school board to pass a policy that protects nearly 11,000 children from consuming irradiated meat products as part of their school lunches. Districts nationwide have offered similar agreements covering just the 2003-2004 school year, but this is the first formal ban in a district outside of California, according to Public Citizen, an environmental watchdog organization.

In lab studies, irradiated food has been linked to leukemia and other forms of cancer, premature death, stillbirth, genetic damage, organ malfunctions, stunted growth and vitamin deficiencies. Incidentally, irradiated meat also costs 13 to 20 cents more per pound than normal meat.

The Iowa decision has added significance as Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin was responsible for language in the 2002 Farm Bill stating that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must not prohibit irradiated foods in the National School Lunch Program.

—M.B.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish...GloFish?

Though they’ve been banned by California’s Fish and Game Commission, the
latest pet craze out of Texas called GloFish -- zebra fish genetically engineered to glow under a black light -- likely pose no actual biological threat.

They’re tropical, for starters, so even if it’s true that all pipes lead to the ocean, zebra fish wouldn’t survive the relatively chilly trip. And their fluorescence isn’t wholly unnatural: Scientists breed a gene into the fish that’s already found naturally in sea coral.

So folks against the sale of GloFish have little room to base their opposition on the “clear and present danger” argument. But they have a lot of room to question the theories and legislation, or lack thereof, surrounding genetically engineered organisms.

Since the GloFish’s commercial debut—they’ve been used scientifically for nearly a decade—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been flooded with phone calls questioningthe safety and the sanctity of the fish. The agency released a statement to quash further questions indicating that since the tropical aquarium fish are not used for food purposes, they pose no threat to the food supply and that the fish pose no more threat to the environment than their unmodified counterparts that have been widely sold in the United States.

–M.B.

‘Thought Scientists’ and Corporate Marketing

A group of Emory University Hospital researchers known as “thought scientists” have conducted functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans on human brains in the name of helping corporations rake in bigger bucks.

The fMRI’s serve “to identify patterns of brain activity that reveal how a
consumer is actually evaluating a product, object or advertisement,” says the Bright House Institute for Thought Sciences Web site. “Thought Sciences marketing analysts use this information to accurately measure consumer preference, and then apply this knowledge to help marketers better create products and services and to design more effective marketing campaigns.”

Bright House is an advertising agency with a client list including
Coca-Cola, Home Depot and K-Mart. Its subsidiary, Thought Sciences—the world’s leading neuromarketing firm will scan the brains of 30 subjects with fMRI for a quarter million dollars. It’s money well spent by corporations interested in what Thought Sciences has for sale, knowledge to help advertisers create campaigns that will “motivate consumers to behave rather
than just pique their interest.”

National alternative media outlet Grist.com reports that Commercial Alert, a
marketing watchdog group, along with a number of psychologists wrote to
Emory University’s president asking him to put a halt to the “thought
scientists” research.

“Universities exist to free the mind, and enlighten it,” they wrote. “They do not exist to find new ways to subjugate the mind and manipulate it for commercial gain.”

There’s just one question to add: Do we really need to add “neuromarketing” to an already overcrowded business lexicon?

—M.B.

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